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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458148">pictures of you with flowers on the wall</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodswit/pseuds/woodswit'>woodswit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Failed attempt at a one night stand, Fluffy Smut, Takes place in San Francisco</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:54:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22458148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodswit/pseuds/woodswit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They each set out to have a one-night stand - as it turns out, they're not very good at it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>134</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>428</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>my completed fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I took this down because I was worried it was bad and then was convinced to repost it. We'll see where it goes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Earlier</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>Hayes Valley - 8:43pm</strong>
</p><p>It's 4:43am in London and everyone who matters is asleep, even Margaery. Her reflection is a silvery blue fish that flits past her mirror in her darkened apartment; she's too embarrassed to look at herself head-on. Sansa is not the kind of person who wears leather skirts or stilettos, and she's not the kind of person who goes alone to bars. But until six months ago, she wasn't the kind of person who moved around the world, away from her family and friends and everything she has ever loved, either. </p><p>She looks at her mobile; no new texts. No one to stop her, but she senses that she is past gone the age where this would be cute, where the group text would be on fire with mock-outrage and excitement at Sansa Stark, perennial Good Girl, slinking off to a bar alone in a leather skirt. It's no longer a bad decision, without an audience. It's just a choice. </p><p>The sudden, swooping sense of freedom doesn't hit her until she's in her Uber to her chosen bar. No one would know what this means to her, because she has spent so many years hiding her inner world which twinkles like a city and is full of flame and flowers. </p><p>The Uber driver looks at his quiet passenger in his rearview mirror; he sees the faintest hint of a smile curve her doll-like lips. </p><hr/><p>
  <em>Later</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 11:56pm</strong>
</p><p>She watches him buzz into the main lobby, all old mirror and goldenrod carpet from another era. The fluorescent lights buzz and flicker. The air is thick with pot and she can hear the tinny, distant sound of gunshots on television from beyond one of the doors that line the hall. </p><p>"I'm at the end," he says. He glances back at her and bites his lip and for a moment he almost looks uncertain. She wonders if her eyeliner is smeared or if she needs a mint or if he's having second thoughts, but then he suddenly takes her hand and leads her along the hall with long, certain strides, so that she is unsteady in her ridiculous heels, and her heart begins to race and something flutters between her legs. It's just enough momentum that when they get to his door, at the very end, she is brave enough to turn and wrap her arms around his neck and close her eyes and kiss him. Stubble rubbing her skin raw and a mouth that tastes like juniper. Hands on her hips, gripping at the leather that's bunching around her hips, and a hard door against her back. </p><p>She bites his lip for him now - and he bites back.</p><hr/><p>
  <em>Earlier</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>The Tenderloin - 9:27pm</strong>
</p><p>"I'm just saying," one of his friends belches, holding up a finger and making the group pause, "Jon would <em>kill</em> here." </p><p>"Not this again," Jon groans, rolling his eyes and turning away. He walks ahead of the group, hunched in his peacoat against the San Francisco damp.</p><p>"I'm serious! The accent. The hair. The smoldering eyes," his friend continues, and there's a commotion as the group agrees. Jon tries to not think of Sam, and Edd, and all of his friends back home, tries not to think of how the damp of San Francisco will never feel like the damp of London and every roll of fog feels like a laughable attempt to get him to fall in love. "You would <em>kill</em> if you so much as made <em>eye contact</em> with a woman, let alone spoke to one." </p><p>This again. Jon reaches the bar; it's a gin bar called Whitechapel. He holds the door open for everyone in the group. </p><p>"Doesn't it feel fortuitous?" another girl asks with a wink, pausing at the door. "British-themed bar for a Brit. You'll feel right at home." </p><p>Jon rolls his eyes again, and can't help but let his lips curve in a half-grin when she laughs at him. </p><hr/><p>
  <em>Later</em>
</p><p>
  <b>His Apartment - 12:01am</b>
</p><p>Jon grapples blindly with his keys and Sansa laughs against his lips as he curses and breaks the kiss to unlock his door. He hasn't been actually drunk in years, and that swooping, sparkling feeling is reminiscent of university. It is oddly seductive to feel this reckless. He's never been a reckless person, not in matters of love or sex anyway. He has always known who he is and trying on identities - the way you do with bad choices - has never been necessary. But somehow in the bar tonight he realized he's taken a left turn from the road that he has always been on, and he's been lost without knowing it, and hearing a Londoner's voice felt like a signpost. </p><p>They stumble into his apartment, a studio with his couch against his bed. He doesn't know how to do this bit - should they pause? Should he put on music? Should they drink more? - so he doesn't stop, and instead backs her against the wall again and kisses her neck. Her fingers are tangled in his hair and her neck tastes like salt and the silence is thick, humid, when he grazes his teeth along her skin and makes her gasp. </p><hr/><p>
  <em>Earlier</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>Whitechapel - 10:13pm</strong>
</p><p>One minute, she is politely declining a drink from a man who seems perfectly acceptable, wondering why she's declining. This is why she's here, isn't it? To be reckless, to do something she would never do in London - <em>in real life, </em>she thinks - to try on a dress that was not made for her, just to see if it fits. She looks, self-consciously, around her as her spurned suitor stalks away, and across the bar she meets grey eyes that make her think of the world she's left behind: the Thames in January; black ice on a pond shadowed by bone-white trees; spectral kisses in her imagination. </p><p>The next minute is a blur: a man following her to the bathroom - the spurned suitor - <em>piss off </em>in a voice that sounds like home - she is standing alone in a narrow hallway with a man she does not know, muttering, <em>thank you. </em>When she looks up she sees those grey eyes again.</p><p>He's lean, dressed all in black, and he has a man-bun but perhaps not on purpose, and he's looking at her as though he's reeling, as though he's stunned to find her there; as though she is a bird he did not expect to catch when he reached out his hand. </p><p>"Another Brit?" he blurts in surprise. "Where're you from?" </p><p>Somehow, the next minute, they're standing at the bar, and he's pointing out his old street on a map of Dulwich, and she's making fun of herself for having lived in Chelsea, trying to draw a laugh from this quiet, self-assured man, and then they're ordering drinks, and then one more, and then just one more - and then her face is hot to the touch and he's smiling and her blood is pounding and she cannot stop thinking of the way his shoulders make his jumper pull, ever so slightly, or how his eyelashes are pretty, or how when he looks up at her it's a quick flick of his gaze, like she's a secret, or how the hand that grips the bar counter looks strong but gentle - and she knows <em>it's him. </em></p><p>The words are clumsy on her tongue, they tumble out, and at first she is afraid she has gone too far when he only stares at her in shock. <em>D-do you want to get out of here? </em>She has never said those words before. They feel cliche and unfair; he feels like more than that, but she is on a mission and isn't he the man she's been waiting for? </p><hr/><p>
  <em>Earlier</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>Whitechapel - 11:39pm</strong>
</p><p>"D-do you want to get out of here?"</p><p>She's never said those words before; the way she looks away, so quickly, and bites her lip are evidence enough. If he were less drunk it would feel like a betrayal, and for a moment he breaches the surface and remembers he isn't home; he is here, in San Francisco, talking to a girl he does not know. </p><p>For a moment there, he was almost fooled. </p><p>If he were less drunk, he'd politely decline, and endure the teasing from his friends. If he were less drunk, he'd call an Uber for her and send her safely to her apartment. But he's not less drunk; he's <em>very</em> drunk, and he misses London, and maybe everyone's right - maybe he should give it a shot. This girl feels like the London fog has rolled into San Francisco and all he wants to do is close his eyes and let her seep under his skin, let himself get lost in her.</p><p>Their eyes meet and he watches her draw in a shuddering breath. He can see gooseflesh prickling on her bare arms. It's been a while, but he is pretty sure he can give her gooseflesh again.</p><p>He wants to try. </p><p>"Yeah," he says at last. "Yeah, I do." </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As an aside, I highly recommend all of the spots I mention in this fic, if you're ever in the Bay Area.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 12:14am </strong>
</p><p>His mouth is on her neck and a shiver ripples along her skin as she fists her hands in his hair. She is drunk, and has to kick off her heels lest she topple over, and he holds her up and laughs against her lips when she laughs at herself struggling to kick off her heels. She gets the sense that he only laughs when he's drunk or when he's truly comfortable with someone, and the first finger of misgiving trails along her back, even as she kisses him harder. </p><p>This is only happening because they are both drunk, and she does not know if her sense of him being someone <em>more</em> is correct, or is just wishful thinking - and somehow neither possibility makes her feel better. </p><p>She is a romantic, she's always been. To a romantic, this moment cloistered in his apartment in the silence is a bud about to unfurl, but romantics always get their hopes dashed - she sometimes senses that she is little more than poorly-repaired hopes, cobbled back together in a crude imitation of the dreams she had when she was a child - and to a realist (she <em>will</em> be a realist, she will learn someday, why hasn't she learned yet?) this moment cloistered in his apartment is little more than biology. </p><p>Does she not know herself yet? Why must she learn, over and over again, that her dreamy fantasies are so much better than reality?</p><p>His hand slips under her blouse, lingers at the small of her back. His fingertips are light, quick kisses on her skin. He is pausing and she wishes he wouldn't, because when their lips part and his forehead grazes hers, and he asks, 'are you alright?' it makes a lump form in her throat. All she wanted was to try on some identity, to be someone other than Sansa Stark; life is so short and it seems miserably unfair that you only get to really be one person in all of it. For all of the costumes she wears - pencil skirts and ripped jeans and leather skirts and Breton-striped shirts - she is always herself; everything around her is fluid but she stays, infuriatingly, the same. </p><p>She is past gone the age where this would be cute, where her regret would have a soundtrack of 4am love songs in the back of an Uber. </p><p>
  <em>The Next Day </em>
  <br/>
  <strong>Fig &amp; Thistle - 8:57pm </strong>
</p><p>It's just a coincidence. He was going to be in Hayes Valley tonight anyway. And if he breaks off from his friends, who are slogging toward A Mano to wait for forty minutes for fresh pasta in a loud, clattering space, and slinks down a side street toward a tiny bar - well, it's just a coincidence. And if he was the one to suggest a restaurant in Hayes Valley directly after the text he got two hours ago - well, that's really just a coincidence, too. </p><p>her [6:50pm]: I live in Hayes Valley, actually </p><p>him [7:10pm]: oh cool. one of my favorite places is there </p><p>(he is careful to wait, because she is as skittish as a doe, and he does not like to think it but he knows he is the hunter right now)</p><p>her [7:14pm]: oh? which one? </p><p>her [7:15pm]: I'm trying to decide where to go tonight so I'll take any recommendations</p><p>(or maybe she is the huntress, luring him in?)</p><p>him [7:21pm]: it's called fig &amp; thistle. it's tiny. </p><p>He waits. </p><p>her [7:27pm]: Perhaps I'll try it :)</p><p>her [7:27pm]: I like quieter places</p><p>(he is such prey)</p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 12:25am</strong>
</p><p>He's such a romantic, he's always been. Because even as they topple onto his bed he's thinking of how lovely her neck is and how pretty her scent is and he's already caught up in her. He is good at reading people - he's always been - and he knows she is <em>more</em> than a leather skirt and some awkwardness at a bar, or maybe he's just making it up, colouring outside of the lines because he always needs there to be <em>more</em>. It's why California is disappointing to him: for all the colour and noise it's soulless, weightless; there is nothing beneath its surface and the moment he will let it go he knows it will drift away from him like a bright red, empty balloon into a cloudless July-blue sky. This person is not like California; this person is a forest in the rain, streaks of green and brown with the sense of something hidden underneath. She is a brightly-painted door set against ancient stone leading to something wonderful and unknown. </p><p>Her skirt is bunched around her hips and he can feel her heel resting on his lower back. He's sliding the strap of her bra down, thinking of nothing but a freckle on her shoulder and how he wants to kiss every freckle on her skin, when she says, 'wait.' </p><p>It's starting to rain outside. Jon pulls back and hovers over her. Her hair is splayed on his comforter and her lips are swollen but she won't meet his eyes. </p><p>"Yeah?" </p><p>He pulls back, conscious of how still and quiet the air in his apartment is, and how dark it is. They sit beside each other on the edge of the bed. His heart is still pounding and his head is still swimming from her scent. It takes everything in him, when he looks at her, not to grip her chin and kiss her again. She is flushed and raking delicate hands through her hair, hands that were tangled in his hair only a moment ago. He wants to open that door, he wants to get lost in the forest. </p><p>"Um," she begins, "I'm actually not someone who does this." </p><p>"Me neither," he promises, then is embarrassed at how quickly he gives himself away. He's usually far more careful - especially with women. </p><p>"Right, well, I just... I thought this was something I ought to do, but I'm realizing now that it's really not." She is getting up, straightening her skirt, and he sees a flash of pale lace before her skirt falls back down again, and he feels a leap of desire.</p><p>He is stung. But he's good at reading people, and he notices that she's blinking back tears, and her shoulders are curved forward in something like shame, and he knows this is not about him. He watches her shove her feet into her heels. "S-so, I'm just going to go," she says in a high, unsteady voice, straining for dignity, "before this gets messy." </p><p>"Let me walk you," he says at last, as she fumbles for her purse - she dropped it when he pushed her inside. </p><p>"Oh, god, no; that's not necessary. I'm far from here. I'll just get an Uber - I couldn't walk in these heels anyway," she is stammering. He follows her to the door; he glimpses the Uber app already open. Manicured fingers fly across the screen, and she finds a driver at once. </p><p>In the doorway, they pause. He still wants her, but she won't look at him. Maybe he's making it all up. </p><p>"Just give me your number so I know you made it home alright," he says as she folds her arms across her chest. He tries not to think of the freckle. "I promise I won't text you for anything else; but it's late and not safe," he adds. </p><p>In the darkness her blue eyes look silver and flit from him like fish. She bites her lip. Her pupils are wide; she still wants him too, but he won't push. When she lets out a sigh, he feels it across his neck. </p><p>"That's smart," she says at last. "Alright, here it is." </p><p>
  <em>The Next Day </em>
  <br/>
  <strong>Fig &amp; Thistle - 9:01pm</strong>
</p><p>What the fuck is she doing? </p><p>Sincerely, what the fuck? </p><p>Why the fuck is she wearing her favorite dress and her most favorite lipstick, perching on the edge of a bunk bed draped in fairy lights, holding a glass of complicated white wine and staring at her mobile in adolescent prayer? </p><p>And when she sees a lean figure dressed all in black shoulder past a giggling bachelorette party, why the fuck does her heart start pounding and that damned flutter between her legs turn into a goddamn ache? </p><p>
  <em>Earlier</em>
  <br/>
  <strong>Hayes Valley - 1:10am</strong>
</p><p>her [1:10am]: Hi, this is Sansa from the bar. Just wanted to let you know I made it home </p><p>She is standing in her darkened entryway and she kicks off her heels as she stares at the screen. After a long moment - a really long moment - the three dots come up. </p><p>him [1:12am]: hi, Sansa from the bar. </p><p>him [1:12am]: glad you made it home safely. it was nice meeting another Brit.</p><p>Unexpectedly, her vision blurs with tears, and her homesickness is a gnawing hunger in her belly. </p><p>her [1:15am]: Yeah it really was! </p><p>She is typing before she can stop herself. </p><p>her [1:16am]: California feels so lonely! I miss London terribly and want to go back as soon as possible. I think about it all the time. </p><p>She hits 'send' and regrets it immediately, and throws her mobile at her couch in a fit of shame and goes to take off her makeup. In the mirror, she looks desperate: smeared eyeliner and swollen lips and hair that is irrevocably mussed--</p><p>--she hears her mobile vibrate, just audible above the rain. </p><p>him [1:19am]: me too. </p><p>him [1:19am]: when are you going back?</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As usual, I couldn't actually get this done in 3 chapters like I thought. Whatever - have some more sex, everyone.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Fig &amp; Thistle - 9:13pm</strong>
</p><p>She's here; he saw a flicker of flame - her red hair - when he entered, but he won't show that he knows just yet. She seems more polished tonight, more invulnerable, so he will be too.</p><p>He likes this place because it's embarrassing to be drunk here, so no one gets too sloppy; because it's quiet; because it feels like a secret - and she's sitting there on the bunk bed pushed against the wall, draped with tiny fading lights like a memory. He won't look back, not just yet; he can't show he's looking for her. He is careful with women, or at least he usually is.</p><p>He asks for a glass of white wine because he saw that she was drinking white wine, and he knows that mirroring is one of the rules - one of the rules for a game that he doesn't actually play, but it's so pedestrian he is certain he could master it if he took a moment. He's been good at it before. </p><p>But when he glances over his shoulder and sees her - perched on the edge of the lower bunk, determinedly staring at her mobile, fall of copper hair looking like romance in the low light - he feels like to master a game isn't the real victory.</p><p>For a moment he is unbearably aware of the loneliness of living in a place that everyone else loves, that everyone else wants to live in, living a life that everyone envies you for. His friends back home tease him on Whatsapp about living in the land of perfect weather and beautiful girls, but it amounts to nothing when you're standing in another studied bar, fully aware that for all of the trappings - uncommon Jura white wine and expensive cheese boards and black sweaters and sophisticated one night stands in an apartment that is more costly than even London's offerings - you unequivocally hate a place that you are supposed to love.</p><p>Sometimes, you just want to talk to someone who gets it, but on the other hand, sometimes real feelings taint things. Sometimes you need mystery, sometimes you need to feel like there is more that you could have chased. Sometimes you need the flicker of an old god in the distance; to close in and learn that it's just a shadow is the most disheartening of all. He can either open the door and learn there's nothing but an empty courtyard on the other side, or he can leave it locked, and be left wondering what might be beyond it. She is the door to a secret garden, and isn't it better to never learn what is on the other side?</p><p>(or perhaps he would leave it locked because he is a coward; because what if that flicker in the distance is an old god, a spectral calling, and he is unprepared for it?) </p><p>He covertly studies her dress. There's a sliver of pale skin, a hint of softness, that is intentional. Her hair is carefully glossy, and the red on her lips is not too red; she has made herself as palatable as possible.</p><p>This is part of the game, which means she is playing it, too, even if she seems so vulnerable and sweet. </p><p>He takes his wine. She's playing the game, so he will, too. </p><p>
  <strong>Fig &amp; Thistle - 9:17pm</strong>
</p><p>He's shouldering through two groups, all in black, as lovely as a memory, and she feels silly because she is a romantic and she wants this to be more than a cheap shot at sex, and she feels foolish because just last night she said she didn't really do this, yet here they are again, and if not to take another cheap shot at sex then why are they even here?</p><p>"Is this seat taken?"</p><p>He's infuriatingly calm. She coughs on the wine. The wine tastes as sharp and sour as a green apple.</p><p>"This seat is reserved for Londoners," she says, finding her silver tongue just as his pretty lips twitch. She feels like she's won something. When he sits down next to her, his thigh brushes hers and something warm unfurls between her legs. Maybe she can do this. Maybe sex is all she needs - maybe it's alright that everything is constructed to obscure the pitiful biological urges that drive us all.</p><p>"That works out," he says dryly, settling next to her and shrugging, one arm at a time, out of his coat. She's hit with his scent in the movement, and there's another flutter again. "Happen to be from Dulwich. ...So what do you think?"</p><p>They look out at the rest of Fig &amp; Thistle. It's a tiny, amber-lit room of people much cooler than her, and somehow she can taste that it's raining outside. There's a girl at the bar wearing a leather jacket without much authority, laughing too hard at her date's joke (but she isn't actually listening), and two men in the corner with their heads bowed low over a tealight, discussing something with quiet passion, their glasses of red wine lingering on the second glass.</p><p>"I like it," Sansa says at last, and she glances at Jon. "It feels intimate."</p><p>"I can't believe you got the best seat," he says, sitting back and looking at the underside of the top bunk, drenched in tiny fairy lights. "I've waited two glasses of wine before, just to sit here. I don't even like wine."</p><p>It's a compliment, and it's another thing she hides behind the rim of her glass. It's the wine and the fact that they're curled up on a bloody<em> bunk bed</em> draped with fairy lights, looking out at the world, and it feels like a tree house or a secret room or a cavern, a place for secrets. As a child she loved fairy tales and it feels like they are among the fae here, garbed in masks made of flowers that hide who they are, and he is her prince, a coy and slender ruler whose silver eyes can read all of her. The night feels like magic in a way that nothing has felt magic about San Francisco. </p><p>Maybe, she thinks again, this is all she needs. Right now it feels like something glimmering and unknown. Their eyes meet again and there's something knowing in his eyes, something promising. They don't know each other, yet, but when has a man ever held up when she got to know him? They're always exciting at first - complicated knights who gallantly hold doors open for her, tell her that her hair's pretty, have secrets that she is desperate to uncover - but shortly they become people: flawed, bored, irritated with her for something she can't help, impatient and detached. </p><p>So when his pretty lips curve slightly, as though he can read her thoughts, she makes her choice. </p><p>"It is a nice bed," she says, her voice shaking but she plunges onward, "but mine's nicer." </p><p>His brow quirks so slightly in surprise and she watches him smooth his features and lift his chin slightly. </p><p>"I thought you said you don't do this," he remarks cautiously. </p><p>"I don't. But you don't like wine," she points out, "yet you're drinking it anyway. We all try things on sometimes." </p><p>"Yes," he hedges, "but I actually finish the glass when I order it." </p><p>It's a challenge. So she licks her lips, watches his eyes subtly follow the motion, and then downs her glass. It's sour enough to make her shudder. </p><p>"There," she says. "I live five minutes away." </p><p>He chews his lip, studying her for a moment, then at last finishes his own glass. </p><p>"Then let's go," he says, already grabbing her hand. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 9:32pm</strong>
</p><p>They do not reach for each other when she's unlocked her door and they're standing in her entryway. She prepared for this in a frenzy, doing all of the girly, stupid things she used to do when a boy might be coming over: sprayed perfume on her sheets; left a magnolia-pink lacy bralette to dry 'by accident' on a hook by her sink; set a vase with a single flower on her kitchen counter; turned her fairy lights on. These coy little things feel hopelessly childish now, with this very experienced-seeming man standing in her apartment, grey eyes sweeping over the studio space. </p><p>They linger in her entryway; somehow the momentum is gone. Neither of them is drunk, that's the problem, and her hands feel clammy. </p><p>"You don't have to," he says one last time in the silence. "If you changed your mind on the way here." </p><p>"I want to," she insists, looking away and setting her bag down on her console table. "I just don't really know how to."</p><p>She stares at the single peony in the vase, focusing on it. "The thing is that I was actually in a relationship and engaged for a very long time. I sort of missed out on this whole...phase of reckless behavior, when everyone else was doing it. And last night I was drunk, and tonight I'm not. It feels less ...inevitable."</p><p>"It's better, though," he promises, "a lot better."</p><p>"Well," she stammers, feeling her neck and collarbone flush, "you should start, because I don't--" </p><p>He cuts her off with a kiss, and she backs into her console table, hears it wobble, hears her purse fall off with a soft <em>fwump</em>, tube of lipstick and compact clattering along the floor with a plasticky chuckle. He tastes like white wine and his hands are already on her waist, where her dress ties in place, and her heart pounds as she wonders if he'll untie it already, but he kisses her neck instead, teeth grazing her skin, and the way it feels when his chest brushes against hers makes the ache between her legs throb. </p><p>He's right. It isn't a blur like last night: she feels every hair on her body stand on-end, feels the heat curl in the pit of her belly like there's a hook there, feels every brush of friction when his slightly chapped lips brush against hers again, hears every sheet of rain outside. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 9:47pm </strong>
</p><p>He wishes she had not told him about her past; even that little hint of sadness makes this feel less like a game he is expertly playing. There's something unsteady about it now and he tries to find things to disdain about her as he guides her toward her bed, like the lace underpinning hanging by her sink - so clearly arranged - or the cloud of perfume that rises up around them as they topple onto her bed. But they only make her seem sweeter, and make him like her more - she's watched other people play this game, maybe heard her friends talk about it, but she herself so clearly is no expert and she's even admitted it to him, so innocently and so offhandedly. The polish that she had that made her gleam and sparkle even in the low lighting of Fig &amp; Thistle is a veneer and she is confused sweetness underneath.</p><p>This is why he doesn't do this; this is why he is more careful with women. He is such a stupid romantic. </p><p>So he breaks their kiss and unties her dress with hasty movements, and focuses on the soft swell of skin revealed when her dress comes apart. He is dizzy from the perfume and dizzy on the sounds she makes when he kisses downward; even the sounds are raw and inexpert, unprepared and unstudied. Her hands are tangled in his hair and when he kneels beside her bed and slides her underwear off, he hears a sharp intake of breath that turns into a shudder when he kisses her there. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 9:52pm </strong>
</p><p>She considers telling him he doesn't have to do that, as her legs hook over his shoulders and his strong hands grip her hips, but the words die on her lips and turn into a gasp instead. She's never done this before - rather, no one's ever done this to her before - and isn't tonight about being reckless at last? </p><p>She forgets what she was thinking about. She feels like every part of her is blushing. He's kissing her between her legs as slowly as he kissed her mouth and neck and sometimes it's almost too much and she thinks of the sour wine that made her shiver, of his thigh brushing hers, of his hands lingering, infuriatingly, at her waist but not untying her dress. This is pure biology but without those little moments - moments built on magic, entirely not on biology - then she knows that this feeling of coiling, of rising, would not happen. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:03pm </strong>
</p><p>She shudders and shivers against him and when he pulls away, her chest is rising and falling and she is lifting her head up to look at him. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is wild. It's just a game, he reminds himself, and one that he is good at. He breaks the gaze; she looks so vulnerable and sweet that it's drowning out the reminder that this is a game and to make it anything more will simply disappoint him. </p><p>So he wipes his mouth on the heel of his hand and feels her watching the movement, and pulls away from between her legs. </p><p>"Take off your shirt," she says without much authority, but he looks at her in surprise anyway and she's sitting up, arms crossed over her chest almost shyly - if she wanted to be convincing, she wouldn't hide - and eyes bright, lips red. She waits, watching him, slightly breathless. The game shifts and he is relieved, so he stands up and pulls his shirt off, feeling her watching the movement. When he drops it, she has dropped her arms though he can see she wants to cover herself again. </p><p>She bites her lip. "Come here," she says, and he obeys. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks to everyone for sticking with me on this weird little experiment.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:04pm </strong>
</p><p>It somehow is too personal now. A truck passes her apartment and for a flash Jon is illuminated in silver and her apartment is bright as day, and when the light passes and it's gone and they're in shadow again, she feels that too much has been revealed. Jon climbs onto her bed, hard planes and dark hair, and pushes apart her legs with a gentle confidence that makes her command feel foolish. <em>Come here,</em> she had said as though she had been the one in command, but she parts her legs for him at the slightest touch and sighs when he hovers over her and kisses her long and slow, hand on her jaw and jeans brushing her bare skin. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 1:37am </strong>
</p><p>He can still taste her. </p><p><strong>Her Apartment - 1:37am</strong> </p><p>She wishes she had not told him to leave. Sansa watches the rain and thinks of grey eyes, and imagines Jon asleep beside her, and feels like a fool. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:11pm </strong>
</p><p>Her hand tangles in his hair inexpertly and the other fumbles at his belt buckle, and he almost tells her to slow down - but instead her fingertips slip beneath the waistband of his jeans and whisper along the flesh there, and it is so tantalizing and pointless of a touch that it almost feels like they are in love. He makes the mistake of pulling away, so briefly, and their eyes meet and she is lovely and hopeful and nervous. He can taste saltwater when he looks into those eyes, and without looking away she does it again, that whisper of touch that makes heat rush downward and makes something deep in his chest throb painfully. </p><p>
  <em>Fuck. </em>
</p><p>He looks away as that need squeezes his chest, hard enough that he can't quite breathe, and he closes his eyes and kisses her roughly again, and she impulsively, awkwardly undoes his belt as he bites her lip. He cannot help but think of her saying <em>I'm not actually someone who does this</em>, he cannot help but think of her sitting in the bar so determinedly polished, of the soft vulnerability of her shoulder blades last night in Whitechapel; she was so nervous and so composed - why did she feel the need to do this? Why has she let him into her apartment? - and his imagination is already running away from him as she unzips his jeans with such an unpracticed hand. Maybe something bad happened; maybe she's a virgin; maybe her heart was broken. But when she touches him for a moment he's senseless; it feels like more because she feels like more and he gasps against her mouth even though she's doing it wrong. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 1:38am </strong>
</p><p>He won't text her. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 1:38am </strong>
</p><p>She won't text him. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:14pm </strong>
</p><p>She's pushing off his clothes and he helps, trying to avoid her eyes, and in his haste he glimpses too much of her life, more personal than her pretty breasts or the dip of her belly button or the place he kissed earlier: a photograph of a family on her dresser in a girly frame; scattered perfume bottles arranged on the windowsill; a work laptop on her desk and papers neatly stacked beside it; a water glass with a lip print from perhaps chapstick still on her nightstand, an inch of water left in it. When he looks back he feels filled with her, and she's looking up at him nervously. </p><p>But then she bites her lip and watches him as she moves her hand differently, and he thinks<em> fuck it</em> and falls against her again as she touches him. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment -1:40am </strong>
</p><p>He stares at his phone. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 1:40am </strong>
</p><p>She is ashamed and embarrassed; she deletes their texts from her phone and erases his number. </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:15pm </strong>
</p><p>Their foreheads brush as he pulls away. His skin is hot to the touch and softer that she would have guessed, and she feels strangely embarrassed but also overcome, and when he pulls her hand away with a strong grip and murmurs in her ear <em>I want you now,</em> she forgets any feeling of awkwardness. </p><p>"I-I want you too," she whispers as he kisses her neck and her collarbone. There's clumsy hands and she reaches blindly into her nightstand and she's so lost that one second he's pulling away and the next it is all heat, her calf sliding against his thigh and lips brushing vaguely, desperately. She thinks of biting into a pear, of inhaling the scent of her own pillow after being away from home, of pedaling wildly down a hill on her bike. Her bedroom is humid now and she can only clumsily try to grip her headboard, then her comforter, in sweaty fists. </p><p>There is one moment that she will keep thinking of later: he pulls away and his eyes are impossibly soft and gentle, and he is looking at her like he knows her, and she thinks, <em>he is kind</em>, and she thinks, <em>this is a mess.</em> </p><p>
  <strong>Her Apartment - 10:24pm </strong>
</p><p>They break apart and lay beside each other on top of her comforter, breathless and flushed and dazed, and he knows he has to leave soon or it will get messy, and they each happen to tilt their heads at the same time and look at each other across the mattress and he realizes, too late - it already is. </p><p>The silence is ringing again, and the seconds tick by as they each come back from that strange otherworld of frenzy and rose-colored light, and one of them should speak but neither can. She is changing, he can see it: she swallows, eyes bright, as she stares up at her ceiling. She has not done this before so she is unprepared for the most personal, most private moment of all: when it's over, and that anguish of desire has faded, they are just people again in grey light who do not know each other. He wishes they had sneaked off to the bathroom at Fig &amp; Thistle and been more openly sordid about it; he wishes he had simply asked her to dinner; he wishes he were not such a fool. </p><p>He must do the right thing; he must make it easier on her. He's done this before and she hasn't; she doesn't know how it's done. </p><p>"I can go," he offers. "You probably have brunch or something to get to in the morning." He takes care that his voice is light, but he watches her reckon with that eclipse of longing and loneliness. There is nothing they can do to avoid this; she wanted a one-night stand and she has gotten it. He will not force his presence on her. He will not fall prey to the idea that sex means intimacy, that they can fuck - because that is what they did - and then curl up together like they mean something to each other. He's tried that before, too, just to delay this horrible moment. </p><p>"How did you know?" she laughs, sitting up, and he can see the precise moment that the walls come up again. He sits up too and studies her profile. In this moment he sees her as she is to the world: polished and remote, untouchable and enigmatic. "Yeah, actually, I have a yoga class first thing, and then straight to brunch." Her voice is falsely bright as she hastily covers herself with a rose-colored throw blanket and he realizes he bit her shoulder at one point. </p><p>"Yeah, I'm supposed to go to running club," he finds himself lying. It's not this week but they have to do this. He's already getting dressed, his back to her. "I can find my way out," he says through his shirt as he pulls it over his head. </p><p>"Right. Well--" she pauses. "Enjoy running club." </p><p>He's already at the door. He does not look back at her. </p><p>"Yeah, thanks," is all he says.</p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 1:42am </strong>
</p><p>He turns off his phone so he'll stop bloody checking it.</p><p><strong>Her Apartment - 1:43am</strong> </p><p>Sansa showers. There's a gentle but insistent ache that she wishes would abate because she wants to pretend tonight never happened. She keeps thinking of his eyes, of how she caught him looking round her apartment with curiosity, like he wondered about her, like he wanted to know her better, but of course she's an emotional fool so she was reading into what was probably him simply looking around. </p><p><em>But his eyes</em>, she thinks again miserably. </p><p><em>But I'm a fool,</em> she thinks. She dries her hair and changes into pajamas but she can't stop thinking of his eyes. His eyes, his eyes. It's like being hungry but worse, a gnawing consuming sense that she has let go of something and is watching it fly off a bridge, or that she has just missed a train and is watching it rush away like a ribbon in the tunnel. </p><p>This city is enormous and lonely and full of stuff but it's empty, and it will never be home, and in spite of doing this - the leather skirt, the lipstick, the seductive talk - she has not really taken any chances since she moved here. </p><p>Her phone taunts her. His eyes, his eyes. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 1:57am </strong>
</p><p>He liked her. That's the part that Jon cannot quite get past. He's not a naturally happy person, and he loves deeply but narrowly. He wishes he were more affable, more genial, but the truth is that he is either passionate or detached, and things either mean everything or nothing, and the other truth is that he's good at understanding people. He can read them and he read her, or he started to, and what he could read he liked. </p><p>How often do you actually like someone without trying? Every person he meets feels like San Francisco itself; he is told to like them and he knows he ought to but there is no connection, and she felt like London: like he did not have to even consider trying to like her because it happened before he noticed. </p><p>He turns on his phone again, and there's nothing from her - because of course there isn't. </p><p>He's doing it without thinking. Jon grabs his jacket again. His hair is still wet from his shower, but it's still pouring so it hardly matters. He is not going to do this over text. Somehow he knows that only real gestures will matter, that to do the easy thing or the subtle thing will not be good enough for Sansa. Because he knows why she put on that skirt and ventured out into the night - she has hope for something; she is seeking something. She is a hunter and he is such prey. She has ensnared him so now he will offer himself up like a fool. </p><p>He locks his door and leaves the fog of pot in the hallway, and is just shielding his eyes from the rain when he sees a figure turned flame in the rain under the streetlight outside of his building, walking up the sidewalk. </p><p>She stops. She's wearing a raincoat but he knows her at once. </p><p>"Sansa," he blurts. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 2:02am </strong>
</p><p>Jon is staring at her, his hair wet, and he lets the front door to his building swing shut. For a moment she feels a blast of hot humiliation: he is going to see someone else, and like some sort of loon she's actually gone to his apartment - is she out of her mind - but then the barest hint of a smile curves his lips. </p><p>
  <strong>His Apartment - 2:03am</strong>
</p><p>"I, um, had your address from last night, when I got an uber," she explains. He watches her let down the hood of her rainjacket as she approaches. She is not polished, or enigmatic. Her hair is wild and messy and when she reaches him, her lashes are clumped together with rain and he can tell that she is close to tears. The wall is down at this witching hour and this is his moment to prove that she has caught him. </p><p>"I was just coming to see you," he admits, and watches her eyes flash flame in the streetlight. The traffic light behind them changes, paints her gold then red. </p><p>She looks down, and when she looks up she is as lit up as a city, and he thinks of the locked garden door once more. He thinks he will do anything to unlock that door and see what lies on the other side. She is trying not to smile, and then she's trying not to laugh. </p><p>"You were?" she asks in delight, and he finds himself trying not to smile, then trying not to laugh, too. </p><p>"Yeah." He pauses. "Um, do you want to get dinner?" </p><p>She lets herself smile, so he does too - just a bit. </p><p>"Yeah," she says at last, and he thinks of her in Whitechapel. <em>Do you want to get out of here?</em> she had asked. <em>Yeah, I do, </em>he had said. "Yeah<em>,</em> I do," she says.</p>
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